


she's a lady (and ladies shouldn't be messed with)

by distractionpie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex/Gender, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Female Jean Kirstein, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, This is one of the silliest and most self-indulgent things i've written in a long time, Tsundere Jean Kirstein
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22970959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: Jeanne Kirschtein has one ambition - to graduate at the top of her cadet corps class, secure a cushy post in the military police, and work her way up the ranks until she's living the good-life in Mitras. She's absolutely not going to be distracted by cute but stupid boys, delusions of victory against the titans, or caring about her competitors.What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Jean Kirstein/Eren Yeager
Comments: 34
Kudos: 88





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> I hit up the kink meme pretty soon after joining the fandom and my eye was almost immediately caught by [these](https://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2124.html?thread=1719884#cmt1719884) [two](https://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/19979.html?thread=10343179#cmt10343179) prompts. This isn’t a direct fill of either of them but is inspired by both of them. And spurred on by [bonkochammy’s amazing fem!jean artworks](https://bonkochammy.tumblr.com/tagged/fem%21jean-kirschtein).
> 
> I don’t have a full story planned out, but I have loads of bits of story so I’m probably going to handling this as a collection of scenes within the au based on how I get inspired rather than trying to stick to a linear narrative and plot or, fair warning, update schedule.
> 
> This section uses a fair bit of dialogue taken direct from the anime, but later parts will be more divergent.
> 
> Title from She's a Lady by Forever The Sickest Kids

At least half of the recruits around Jeanne look like they’re about to either pass out or hurl.

Their new instructor — or is it commander now that they’re military recruits? — paces between the lines of fresh cadets. He’s passing some by, the ones who don’t seem terrified by him, and Jeanne tries to breathe slow and deep, ignoring the way the dry air makes her nose itch and the headache that her tightly pinned back plaits are causing, and wondering if she’ll be part of that exclusive group.

She isn’t that lucky. After a few minutes of yelling at various people, the instructor stops in front of her. She straightens her spine, wondering what those he’s bypassed have that she doesn’t, and looks at the instructor head on. Maybe he hasn’t classed her with those hard-eyed students, but that doesn’t mean she’ll let him write her off.

She watched the garrison soldiers around her neighbourhood before she signed up and while their useless drunkenness wasn’t something she wanted to associate with it means she’s already comfortable snapping a salute and talking like a soldier as she announces, “Jeanne Kirschtein, from the Trost district, sir!”

“And what are you here for, cadet?”

“To join the military police,” she explains, trying to keep her face blank because she’s pretty sure that the screaming instructor isn’t going to appreciate how clever she’s been to find a route to a better life that doesn’t involve years of clawing up the merchant ladder in the hopes of being able to afford to live in Sina or, worse, being the supportive wife of somebody climbing that ladder. Still, a little of her ambition slips out regardless, “The best of the best.”

“That’s nice, you wanna live in the interior do ya’?” Jeanne can hear the slight sneer in the instructor’s tone, but c’mon, pretty much everybody here must want to be in the military police, there’s no way the instructor joined up thinking of training kids, so what’s the harm in being honest?

“Yes sir!”

The hit takes her by surprise.

Her knees buckle as she falls to the dirt, grabbing at her head. She’d known the training would be hard, but she hadn’t figured the instructors would be violent so early on, let alone pull dirty fighting moves like head-butting the unsuspecting.

“No one told you to sit recruit,” he yells, “If you can’t handle this, Kirschtein, then forget about joining the military police!”

Oh. That’s how it is. He thinks she wants the military police just because it’s a cushy job and not because she’s prepared to do the work to get there. Well, he’s only right about one of those things.

She grits her teeth, trying to come up with an answer, but he’s already moving on to the next recruit. A smiling boy whose grin is quickly wiped off his face when his own ambition to serve as an MP is also shot down. He should have known better than to say it, after the way the instructor reacted to Jeanne’s honesty, but maybe he thought presenting a patriotic justification would make his declaration better received. And arguably it is, since he only gets yelled at instead of being knocked to the ground.

The next kid is berated for messing up his salute as she gets back to her feet, the boy next to her looking like he’s torn between offering her a hand up and not wanting to break form. It would be sweet except for how if he aims to get into the military police then he’s her competition and accepting assistance might make her look weak so she’s glad he keeps his hands firmly behind his back in the end.

And then a recruit gets caught eating a potato.

Damn. If this is the calibre of the rest of the class, she has a good shot at top ten without even having to try, but no wonder the titans are unstoppable. The garrison guards she’d seen growing up could be sloppy, but she’d figured that was just because losers got assigned to a dull place like Trost, not because that was the standard of a soldier.

The rest of the day is dedicated to the most basic of training, showing them how to salute and stand at attention properly unlike the improvised way some of them had during that first assembly. It’s nothing Jeanne doesn’t already know, there were a dozen recruits who registered at Trost garrison and came here together and they’ve had time to talk about what to expect, so she gets to wait around and size up the competition as the country kids get their remedial lesson.

After her humiliating knock-down during the assembly drill, she’ll to assert her place among the recruits. It was clear the instructor was looking to remind them all of how much they have to learn but ignorance and naivete could be trained out of them, if she gets a reputation for weakness she’ll never shake it and she can already predict how being marked out as a hindrance (or worse, an easy target) could make training hell. Potato girl makes an excellent distraction, with her outlandish error and being the first to get assigned an actual punishment, but Jeanne can’t trust that her own fall is forgotten.

Right now, everyone’s attention is elsewhere though, and they’ve relaxed without the presence of an instructor, dropping any military air and acting like the kids they are. She’s unpinned her hair and she can see some of the other girls have done the same, a few classmates are concentrating on their food, but most have finished and gathered around one recruit in particular. She recognises him as one of those who didn’t get called out in assembly, all dark messy hair and skinny limbs, and now she knows he’s from Shiganshina Jeanne wonders if that has something to do with why the instructor passed him by, though his little blond friend is from the same place and the instructor didn’t hesitate with him.

And everybody wants to know about his experience of surviving a titan attack.

It is interesting, but there’s no way Jeanne’s joining the crowd standing around him and being blatant about their awe. This is a competition and this guy being one of the few who has seen a titan in the flesh gives him an advantage over the rest of them; there’s no need to draw attention to how all she knows about titans comes from stories.

She can listen just fine from a distance.

When he’d first started talking, his tone had been serious, a reminder of just how horrifying and deadly their enemy was, but when the recruit who’d stood next to Jeanne tries to get the others to stop pushing him, he loses the hard-faced air that those students who hadn’t been called out had all shared and his green-grey eyes lit up as he assured them of his excitement to be a soldier.

So he’s cute (cute enough that she’s surprised it’s mostly male recruits who are clustered around him, although perhaps the girls are frightened by the titan talk, though why people who freak out just from stories would join the cadets she can’t even begin to guess) but not smart. It’s good to know that boys here are just the same as the ones back home — even the ones who aren’t totally good for nothing always have their flaws.

How naïve does he have to be, to talk like defeating the titans was a possibility? He ought to know better, coming from the place they’d breached wall Maria, but he talks like he’s something special, will be able to do what nobody has done in a hundred years of trying, based on nothing but determination.

Ha. With an attitude like that, he’s about as likely to last the week as Jeanne is to run off to the survey corps upon graduation. It’s a shame she doesn’t know any of the other trainees well enough yet to place a real bet against him.

The passion in his voice as he imagines butchering titans sends a shiver through Jeanne, but it’s hardly enough for her to lose her senses and she’s definitely doesn’t approve of the fervour with which her new classmates are watching him, the way they’re getting drawn in by his intensity.

So she laughs at him.

She’s expecting it to break the tension, to make their fellow recruits realise what nonsense they’re listening to, but instead his electric gaze snaps over to her, practically daring her to say something. So she does. She couldn’t stop herself even if she wanted to. “Not that it’s my business—” if anything it’s good news if fewer cadets are trying to make the top ten “—but signing up for reconnaissance is like a death sentence.”

“I guess we’ll see,” he says. Jeanne smiles. That’s right, they will see. Because they’re gonna have to get through training first and Jeanne knows she’s top ten material and this guy has yet to give her any evidence he’s even got what it takes to make it to graduation. “Or, I guess I will,” he continues sharply. “You seem intent on hiding in the interior with the MPs.”

Jeanne shrugs, flicking one of her plaits over her shoulder. She’s aiming high and she’s proud of it, calling it hiding makes it sound like she’s only doing it because she’s scared, but there are simpler ways to ensure survival than going through three years of military training and fighting to graduate in a top spot — Jeanne wants safety _and_ the good life.

“Look, I’m just speaking honestly,” she says. It’s not her fault if others have egged on whatever stupid delusions that mean he thinks he’s a hero in the making before completing a single full day of exercises. “It’s better than being some loud-mouthed, tough-guy wannabe, pretending he’s not as scared as everybody with any sense is.” Because they are. Their classmates might be playing cool in front of this big-talker but she’d watched their faces in assembly and most of them are petrified of the training, never mind going up against an actual titan.

“Are you trying to pick a fight?”

She’d been trying to talk some sense back into the room, jerk them away from all the death-wish nonsense that’s so dumb when they have to survive training first. But loudmouth makes two people in one day insinuating that she’s a coward just for having the same basic self-preservation instinct any sane person has and not joining in on the ridiculous hero fantasies that he’s spilling, and she can’t let that challenge go unanswered without risking such a reputation sticking.

So she ignores the freckled boy imploring them to stop (the same guy who’d stood by her in the line-up and, if this soft behaviour is a pattern, he’ll get eaten alive by the other trainees never mind the titans) and gets to her feet, meeting her challenger halfway. She’s taller than he is, which is still strange because it’s only been a few months since the growth spurt that had her finally outgrowing her baby fat and shooting up to a more adolescent height, but it’s hard to guess how this will go. She’s probably stronger than he is, she has the size advantage and she’s been working hard since she decided a year ago that her intention was to become a cadet, but if he is a wall Maria refugee then he might have some experience fighting. Hell, maybe the other recruits will forcibly stop this from going any further — but she doubts that. They’re all too in awe of big-mouth, she’s the only one willing to match him.

But the sound of the bell snaps her from temper to logic. This guy is obnoxious, but there’s no need to make enemies yet. She needs to endure three years with these kids and Jeanne can’t help but be conscious right now loudmouth and all the classmates who’ve fallen under his spell are standing together on one side and she’s alone on the other. Getting into the MP is a competition, but the military is also a cooperative organisation and the last thing she needs is her efforts to be top of the class being hindered by the fact she’s made too many enemies on the first day. She doesn’t want to be labelled a coward, but letting herself get dragged into stupid fights isn’t any better. Especially not when she isn’t familiar enough with the routines of the camp to ensure they won’t be caught by an instructor.

She sighs.

“Hey, I apologise, sorry for calling you names and dismissing your choice of career,” she offers, she’s not really sorry but his idiocy isn’t important enough to be stubborn about it, holding out a hand of friendship.

If he wants to be a scout then he’s stupid but he’s also not competition which means she has a better chance of getting along with him than most of the recruits. And even if he is suicidally stupid, they have three years of training to get through before he’ll have any good opportunity to act on his wild notions of titan slaying. There’s no reason for his future plans to ruin all chance of them getting along now. Who knew, maybe once he got through the training, he’d realise how absurd the things he was saying were and turn the heat in him to a less idiotic goal.

“Right,” he says, shoulders dropping. “Yeah, I’m sorry as well.”

And for a moment she thinks that’s it, this is all going to blow over, but instead of shaking it, the hothead slaps her hand down, turning away from her and walking out of the cabin.

She stares after him, feeling her face heat with the humiliation of being dismissed once again, then one of the other girls, one of the exclusive group who hadn’t been picked on in assembly and insanely pretty to boot, follows him while the rest of loudmouth’s admirers stop staring at Jeanne and break back into little groups, quite pointedly trying to move on to new topics.

Well, no way is she going to be ignored like that. Pushing past the other cadets, she steps out after them and heads over to where loud-mouth and the beautiful girl who followed him are walking together.

It’s not hard to get close enough to hear their conversation, leaning on the railing brings her within earshot without looking like she’s obviously eavesdropping, and she catches what sounds like the tail end of a scolding from the black-haired beauty.

“—okay, Eren?”

“If you insist on worrying, worry about how long your hair is,” loudmouth replies dismissively. Jeanne supposes Eren is his name, it could be first or last but the familiarity the dark-haired girl has with him suggests it’s his given name. “It’s going to catch up with you in a bad way when we start on the ODMs,” he continues, as if he’s such an expert. “After all, we’re taking this seriously which means no distractions, not like the slackers who don’t care and just want to coast into the MPs.”

Jeanne straightens up from the railing, ready to storm over to them, but admitting to eavesdropping on the first night, when cadets will be living in such close quarters and privacy will only be possible if they work together to allow it, is not the way to start the next three years.

But she’s furious.

How _dare_ he? He might be cute but he’s still a scruffy looking boy, so why does he think he can dictate about hair to one of the prettiest girls Jeanne’s ever seen and take pot-shots at her in the process.

Not that Jeanne doesn’t agree about Eren’s beautiful friend wearing her hair so long and lose. It’s gorgeous, thick and dark and shiny, but it’s also dangerous. For her trip here Jeanne had pulled her hair back into plaits then twisted and pinned them to the nape of her neck to keep them out of the way, but those pins had been getting on her nerves by dinner so she’d taken them out and let the plaits hang around her shoulders, and loudmouth Eren is right about one thing — long hair could be a hazard, tangling in ODM gear or getting grabbed by an enemy.

And Jeanne is taking this seriously. Only an idiot would think it was possible to make the top ten while slacking.

So perhaps plaits and pins aren’t enough.

Most of the soldiers back home were men but the few women wore their hair a whole mix of ways, but those were soldiers of Trost garrison, hardly the elites. It makes sense for the military police to present themselves efficiently and the more Jeanne thinks on it the more it seems likely that means hair in practical short styles, not time consuming plaits and uncomfortable pins that meant spending time and effort getting her hair fixed away and the risk of that order coming undone in a crucial moment.

But Jeanne also hears her mother’s voice in her head, from the nights when she was too young to comb her own hair properly and so her mother helped her. Cheerful chatter about what pretty hair Jeanne had and how she was so lucky to take after her father’s side of the family in that part of her appearance. The Kirschteins might be average citizens of Trost, but Jeanne’s paternal aunts had married rich merchants and one lived deep behind wall Rose while the other had moved to the capital itself. Back then Jeanne hadn’t seen her hair as anything other than an annoying chore to be managed, the long, thick strands being so prone to tangling if not carefully maintained, but her mother had just smiled and told her that she’d understand when she grew-up.

And she’s grown enough now that she does understand. She’s seen the older boys and girls of her neighbourhood courting and noticed the patterns of which girls get the most attention, their pick of the best young men, the way it’s the beautiful ones first and then the girls with a few pretty things about them (like a cute laugh or long, glamorous hair), then the plain but nice types, with the remainder getting to pick from the boys that nobody wanted or staying alone their whole lives, still living with their parents or other disappointed relatives. The first category was always far out of reach and Jeanne knows that if she removes the one thing that was the basis of her mother’s hopes that Jeanne would be in the second class then she hasn’t got the personality for the third.

But Jeanne’s ambitions have never been about being a wife and what all the approach had gotten her mother was a small flat in a district that is now part of the outer-wall and a life of long hard work.

And it is too easy to grab at her plaits. They hang halfway down her back, she’d already accepted that wearing it in any loose style would get in her way during training, but now she looks at her plaits and sees ropes. If she and Eren had got their fight earlier it would have been all too easy for him to use her hair against her. There were hundreds of cadets at the assembly today and even with a high drop out rate competition for the top ten will be fierce. Jeanne can’t afford to have any weaknesses and, combing her fingers through the strands that have slipped free, she decides she can’t be sentimental either.

Her mother always trimmed Jeanne’s hair with special scissors, though she’s never understood why and they aren’t an option now. From her pocket she fishes out her penknife. It’s been used for opening letters, peeling vegetables, cutting thread for mending clothes - what’s one more task added to the list?

She takes a deep breath and slices.

She’s a cadet of the 104th now and in three years she’ll graduate top of her class and get an interior posting. She’s going to make her own way in the world, assigned to Sina because she’s so talented they need her there and they won’t care if she has lovely hair or no hair at all. The plaits come away easily; a few quick cuts on either side and they fall to the ground, where she kicks them into the grass. No weakness, no sentimentality, and no regrets either.

Her head is so much lighter, it’s almost dizzying to turn it without the weight of the long plaits. There’s still locks falling in her face though and sweeping around her ears, distracting and graspable, so with her plaits gone she moves to tidying up the now tickling strands brushing her nape, cutting from the underside up until it’s thick on top but there is no hair hanging low enough to risk snagging in gear and all of it is short enough that it will be hard to grab in a fight.

The cuts have been blind, working by touch, she can’t care about what looks good, only cutting parts of herself away until what’s left has the makings of a soldier, but now she raises her knife, taking in the warped reflection the blade offers her, blinking at the strangeness of it. Her hair has been long for her whole life, her mother trimming it only the minimum amount needed to remove damaged ends, and she doesn’t even look like herself now.

No.

She doesn’t look like little Jeannie Kirschtein the cook’s daughter from Trost. And that’s okay. From now on she’s Jeanne Kirschtein, future military police commander and this is how a future commander ought to look.

* * *

Creeping into an already darkened bunk-room with her new look was easy. Sitting down in the bright mess hall for breakfast is harder.

She’d made a closer study of her reflection in the light of day and it’s harder now to convince herself that the messy cut makes her seem like the powerful soldier she wants to be. Her face looks strange, too long and angular now that her hair doesn’t frame and soften it, and the shortness draws attention to her neck, adding to the gawky impression she’s had of herself since her last growth spurt.

It’s not busy yet, most of the other recruits are having a hard time getting out of bed while Jeanne’s used to bakery hours, but every time the door opens she finds herself glancing over, have they noticed her, what do they think of her haircut, is anybody going to be stupid enough to make a joke of her?

So far, it’s all been quiet, nobody seems awake enough to care, but she suspects that it’s only a matter of time.

So she tenses with each swing of the door, looking over to assess each arrival, and the next trio in are a blond kid, loudmouth Eren, and his beautiful friend.

They’re too wrapped up in talking to each other to pay any attention to her, but she can’t help watching them. Loudmouth Eren’s friend from yesterday has taken his advice too. But instead of Jeanne’s brutal decision to cut away the weakness, she’s trimmed her dark hair into a neat bob, short enough to be hard to tangle or grab but still flowing around her face, cute and girly and setting off her beautiful features even more charmingly than the long strands had.

Jeanne swallows and runs her hand up the newly uncovered skin of her neck until her fingers brush against the messily hacked bristles of her own locks. It’s still longer on top, if they were going to train in all elements then she didn’t want to worry about wearing a hat, but removing the rest has left her head feeling almost weightless and her neck exposed in a way that she doesn’t remember it ever being. And while last night there’d been some freedom in cutting the weight of past expectations away, in the cold light of morning she can’t help wonder if maybe she’d gone too far. Eren’s beautiful friend clearly didn’t feel driven to such drastic measures and a glance around the mess hall shows that even plenty of the boys are wearing their hair longer than Jeanne is now.

Well, screw them.

When the pretty strands that flow around Eren’s friend’s beautiful face get in her eyes and make her mess up in drills, Jeanne will be there to take the top spot with no vanities holding her back.

She’s startled out of her thoughts when somebody joins her at the table. It’s the guy who’d been beside her in assembly, the one who wanted to join the MPs too and had tried to keep her and loudmouth from getting into a fight. Marco, she remembers now, though she hadn’t been paying attention to his identification at the time, from some tiny place she’d never heard of.

“Jeanne, right? I didn’t recognise you for a moment.” Jeanne braces for a joke but then she looks up at his face and sees nothing in his smile but genuine friendliness. Another strike in favour of her theory that he’s the type of soft-hearted that will be crushed by his competition. “You cut your hair last night?”

“Yeah,” she says, forcing her voice to stay casual. “I meant to do it before I came but I didn’t have time, too many people wanting to see me off, y’know?”

He shrugs. “Not really, my village is pretty small. But I’m sure you’re going to make them all really proud of you. I mean, with that haircut you practically look like a grown-up soldier already,” he says and Jeanne grins. Good, that’s how it should look. Like she’s not a little girl but somebody her fellow cadets will have to take seriously. “But it’s a little crooked at the back.”

Oh. For a moment his words had made her feel better about the drastic action she’d taken, somebody else agreeing her judgement was correct, but of course there was a flaw to follow. It seems like every decision she’s made since arriving at camp has come with a sting in its tail, why should talking to the one other cadet open about ambitions for the MPs be any different.

“I could help you with that,” he adds.

Jeanne hesitates. Accepting help might be taken as another show of weakness, but it would be good to get a fix if the itchy feeling at the back of her neck is caused by stray hair rather than just fear she’s done something stupid on day one of training. And this guy, freckled and smiling and so nice he must be oblivious of the fact that if they’re both angling for the military police then she’s his competition, isn’t a threat.

“After breakfast,” she says, then shoves her roll over to his plate. After all, she doesn’t want this to be a debt and they aren’t friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ART!](https://distractionpie.tumblr.com/post/611730515492503552/bonkochammy-a-little-sumn-for-distractionpie)


	2. Basic Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait until next week for one last edit before posting this, but happy international women's day everyone (the chapter I have planned after this one is more thematically appropriate, but this is the one I have ready to go and Jeanne is on theme all by herself. Also, fun fact: I wrote the roughest draft of this scene last _August_ , never expecting to end up writing enough fic about Jeanne to have somewhere to put it, so it really doesn't deserve to wait any longer).

When training exercises start for real, Jeanne has her sights set on Eren Jaeger. He’s dismissed her once, but she’ll make him pay for that mistake.

She’s prepared to wait for the opportunity, though Eren’s disastrous performance during the balance test makes her determined to strike fast because Eren washing out before the first week is over is looking more and more probable by the minute as he’d wiped out in moments every time he was raised in the gear.

It had been so tempting to laugh at his failure, but she’d been pretty sure if she did, she’d destabilise herself. Still, it backs up her theory that for all his big talk he’s not actually got what it takes to be a solider. But being better at staying balanced doesn’t feel personal enough when every other trainee is doing the same thing with varying degrees of success and Eren doesn’t even seem to have noticed that Jeanne spends the whole class upright, if shaky, while he’s falling all over the place.

In the afternoon, it’s hand to hand combat training, which she’s looking forward to. For idiots like Eren, who want to fight Titans, it’s not much use but in the military police (and to a lesser extent the garrison, whose soldiers took on police duties in areas like Trost that weren’t interesting enough to have more than a few MPs assigned there) it will be a vital skill.

That Jaeger and Kirschtein lay together in the class order, so she’ll get the match Eren had tried to challenge her to in the mess on the first night, just makes the exercise sweeter.

She’s not practised serious fighting before. Her playground scuffles with other children that had never escalated beyond pinches and pushing before an adult interfered hardly count. But she’s watched other people fight and Eren’s got a scrawny body and a big ego and Jeanne is ready to show him just how useless both of those things are.

Watching the other pairs fight boosts her confidence further, most of them seemed hesitant to hit, some looked nervous of hurting themselves while others were so obviously uncomfortable with striking against their fellow recruits, but with the MPs in mind Jeanne has already reconciled herself to going up against humans — honestly why would anybody _not_ chose to fight somebody of equal size who could only do the same things you could, over going up against a titan who might eat you?

Soon enough it’s their turn to step into the demonstration circle and she takes a moment to stare Eren down, wondering if he knows just how badly she’s planning on defeating him or if he’s as cocky about fighting as he is the titans. Then the whistle sounds for them to start and Jeanne doesn’t have time to blink before Eren’s fist is swinging towards her.

It’s unexpected, enough to make her stumble what should be a simple dodging move. Her surprise at being head-butted during assembly aside, she’d been prepared for equal treatment from the instructors (after all, neither titans nor criminals wouldn go easy on her for being a girl); but she’d assumed all the other recruits had similar upbringings to her own, in neighbourhoods where boys hitting girls was frowned upon in a different way to boys hitting other boys or girls hitting girls, and that it would take time to get past that and into the military mentality.

But Eren Jaeger apparently has no such mental blocks.

Good. This way, there’s no chance of him claiming later she only beat him because he was holding back.  
He swings at her again, a fast blow, and she’s ready for it this time, one arm coming up to deflect the hit as she reassesses the situation. Eren has definitely been in fights before, but probably not won them, his form is sloppy and barely resembles what the instructors had demonstrated and he’s not thinking tactically to just repeat a move she’s already defended against, but even his unearned confidence gives him an edge over the nervous recruits she’d watched taking their previous turns.

They circle each other, Eren striking wildly so that Jeanne keeps having to resort to strictly defensive moves because he’s too unpredictable for her to have time for a clever retaliation. Eren isn’t treating this like a sparring match, he’s outright fighting her, but the instructors don’t seem interested in stopping them.

It’s embarrassing, letting Eren be the aggressor while she watches for a chance to take a shot, but if he has actual fighting experience, the best way for her to compete with that is to be smarter than his impulsive style and to wait for him to wear himself out, battering against the defensive posture from the pre-exercise lecture which is what they’re supposed to be practicing anyway.

But when Eren pulls one hand out of a fighting stance to wipe sweat from his brow, Jeanne can’t resist the opening, finally she can turn the tide in her favour, so she darts forward, sweeping clean past his half-assed guard to punch him in the mouth.

One point to her, but that’s not going to be enough to impress their classmates or their instructors so she goes for a second blow but this time he’s ready. He grabs her wrist and twists, so on instinct she turns into the motion, letting herself be pulled towards him and then striking his stomach with her elbow. This isn’t how the exercise is meant to go, not what the other recruits did during their turns, but they’re learning to fight — what better way to do so than with a real opponent and doing whatever it takes to win?

The moves of the training session have been abandoned now as they grapple, Jeanne stomping on Eren’s feet while he grabs at the back of her jacket and she grins because if she were any other girl he’d likely have grabbed her hair but his own unknowing advice has brought her above that particular weakness.

But the thrill is just the distraction Eren needs, kicking her legs out from under her and sending her sprawling to the ground. Jeanne tries to drag him down with her, but it’s not a move she knows how to execute properly so, instead of her bringing their fight down to that level, he falls on top of her, and the slightly easier landing means that he manages to recover and turn his accidental pin into a more effective one before Jeanne has time to get her bearings.

She must have fallen hard, because she’s lost all her breath and her head is spinning. Eren’s eyes had looked grey-green at dinner, perhaps it’s the lighting or how close he is, but they almost look blue now. And how can she be seeing wrong when he’s so close? Closer than any of the holds from the instructor’s demonstration required, but Jeanne doesn’t know enough about fighting yet to know if that’s to his advantage or to hers. Probably his, since his weight is pressing her into the dirt. He’s heavy for such a scrawny little thing, crushing the air out of her and making her face flush with the heat radiating from his body. Their legs are hopelessly tangled, she might be able to get a kick in but not with enough force to do anything useful, and he has a firm grip on her wrists as he blinks down at her, a smirk slowly curling his lips as the surprise fades from his eyes in favour of a triumphant sparkle. It’s hard to focus her gaze when his face is only inches away from hers, close enough that all it would take to close the gap between them would be for her to raise her neck.

“Tap out,” Eren says, breath ghostly hotly across her lips and making Jeanne shiver at the strangeness of the feeling. She’s fairly sure that she’d have been in a world of trouble if any school-yard scrap had ended in this position. It isn’t at all what she’d expected from training.

Eren is so close. One tiny movement of her head will bring him from close to touching.

So she moves.

THWACK.

“Ah! What the hell?”

Jeanne rolls away, taking advantage of the way Eren releases her wrists to grab at his newly bloodied nose. “Tapping out, Jaeger?”

“That was a dirty move!” Eren accuses but Jeanne just grins at him, reaching up to wipe the splatter of his blood from her brow. If head-butting is good enough Instructor Shadis, then it’s good enough for her — and if Eren wants to fight Titans, he should get used to handling opponents who don’t fight fair.

“You should probably get that looked at by the medics,” she suggests. Eren hasn’t officially ended the exercise, but there’s no way the instructors will let him not go to the infirmary when there is blood streaming down his face.

And Jeanne’s doing to drill that hold with other cadets to ensure next time he doesn’t even get to think he has her beat.


	3. Girls, Girls, Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from my EJ week break to work on this again.
> 
> This is a character fic as much as a shipping one, at least for these first few arcs, so there's no Eren in this chapter but a glimpse into the girls’ dorm to secure my bechdel test pass and set up a little of how how Jeanne’s relationships with the female cadets differ from her male counterpart’s.

“Swap.”

Jeanne absolutely does not startle so hard she nearly falls out of the bunk at the unexpected voice, just turns _calmly_ to the girl casting a shadow over her bed.

She’s Ymir. Jeanne remembers because she didn’t add a family name to her introduction, which was _weird_ even by the standards of the foreign mix of refugee kids and backwater farm brats that seemed to be the cadet corps primary recruit base. But she’d done well in exercises, and Jeanne had already been wondering about her, if she had some skill worth copying or if it was just because she was probably older than most of the class, going by her height — very few of Jeanne’s peers are taller than her since she hit her growth spurt — and her attitude. It might fit with the lack of name, if she was one of the refugees with messed up paperwork that stopped her from joining up at the usual time.

“Swap bunks with me,” Ymir elaborates. “I want to be with Krista.”

It is not, Jeanne gets the impression, a request. But like hell she is letting herself get bossed around by a fellow cadet.

“Why would I do that?”

Ymir glares at her. “Why do _you_ want to bunk with Krista so bad?”

She doesn’t. Two days with this dormitory assignment, and she already suspects that if she survives the next three years without screaming at Krista to stop being so peppy it will be a miracle, but so far Krista’s biggest flaw is being too friendly for somebody who just met Jeanne yesterday, so there were plenty of worse personalities to get stuck with. And if this girl wants to bunk with her, there’s clearly a reason for it.

“I asked first,” Jeanne reminds her. And her question is more legitimate, after all, Ymir is the one asking for a change. There’d been girls back at her old school who’d had best friends, girls who walked arm in arm between classes and always claimed desks together where they could, but they’ve only been in training a few days, she can’t see any reason Ymir would care so much about bunking Krista on such a short acquaintance, unless… She’s not sure Krista said where her hometown was, and she can’t place Ymir’s accent at all. “Do you know her from home, or something?”

“Or something,” Ymir mutters.

Unhelpful.

But the real question is, “Who are you bunking with?”

“Sasha,” Ymir say, nodding to a bunk nearer the door, where potato girl was sitting on the ground rummaging through her pack.

Jeanne isn’t sure what her deal is. She’d been ignorant enough to eat a potato in the middle of the introductions ceremony, but she had a fancy manner of speaking like an inner-wall girl, yet was still strong enough to run the laps assigned to her. She’s weird.

But none of that is as important as the fact she’d nearly ended up with laps again the second day, after oversleeping, which might have been due to the exhaustion but she’d only seemed upset about how little was left when she’d finally turned up to breakfast, so it was probably a usual sort of thing.

Jeanne is an early riser by habit, but she’s never been a morning person. Krista had been up before her today (and has already mentioned growing up on a farm, which means that rising with the sun is likely to be a habit and not just sleeping poorly in a new bed) but unlike Jeanne, she’d risen with cheer.

They’d been assigned alphabetically, which avoided fighting and dramatics over who bunked where, but the trainers surely had more important things to care about than if they arranged a simple swap without making a fuss.

“Top or bottom?”

Ymir eyes Jean’s lower bunk with a smirk, then says, “Top.”

“Deal.”

She rolls out of the bunk and started gathering up her belongings. She hadn’t bothered to unpack properly yet, there was no point getting things out before she needed them, so it wasn’t difficult to bundle her stuff up and haul it across to the bunk Ymir had traded.

It’s essentially the mirror image of the one she’s just vacated, a little nearer the doors but further from a window. Ymir must have been honest about wanting to swap because of Krista, because there’s nothing else to distinguish between the beds.

“Hey?” Potato-girl — heck, if they’re bunkmates now Jeanne probably ought to get used to thinking of her by her proper name — _Sasha_ says. “That’s Ymir’s bunk, and she’s—”

“We’re swapping,” Jeanne cuts in, tossing her stuff up the ladder. “She wants to share with Krista.”

“Oh...” Sasha casts a thoughtful glance over at where Ymir has thrown her stuff onto Jeanne’s old bed and is climbing up to talk to Krista, and nods, seemingly unperturbed by how quick her bunkmate has been to ditch her. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

It does? What does potat- _Sasha_ know that she doesn’t?

Well, they’re going to be bunking together for the next three years, or however long Sasha lasts, she’ll have plenty of time to find out.

* * *

Jeanne wakes to quiet.

Not silence.

Nearly two dozen girls in a room are not capable of silence, even when most of them are sleeping, but there’s no footsteps or chatter, no smiling Krista saying ‘good morning’ as if there’s anything to judge on before the sun has fully risen. From the bunk below, she had hear Sasha’s deep breathing — just short of a snore — and there are birds outside the window, but there’s nothing to disturb Jeanne as she stares up at the ceiling.

It’s tempting to laze about in bed, going by the long shadows it’s still a while yet before breakfast is served, but stronger is the draw to enjoy going about her morning routines without the jostling elbows of all the other girls.

Especially since she’s already discovered that the shower block the girls’ dormitories share barely spits out a few minutes of hot water at a time and though she hasn’t had any problems yet with the dormitory sinks she suspects that once the other girls are up hot water will quickly run out here too. Rolling out of bed and landing with a soft thud that made Sasha mumble in her sleep, Jeanne made her way past lines of sleeping girls to the bathroom.

Most of the cabin is poorly maintained, there’s a draft under the front door and the windows rattle in their panes, but the bathroom door opens soundlessly as Jean steps inside, presumably the effort of previous occupants who didn’t want to be woken by creaking hinges.

To her right, there’s a row of four cubicles; to her left, a matching row of sinks, one long mirror, and Mikasa Ackerman, beautiful friend to the most obnoxious boy Jeanne had ever met.

Even now, in a plain and faded blue nightgown, rubbing sleep debris from her eyes, and with her hair creased into messy waves, she looks elegant. Hers is a charming dishevelment, unlike the disaster that is Jeanne’s bed-head.

Urgh.

It’s too early to for embarrassment though, not at the unkempt state of her appearance or her own sleepwear, which had fitted fine pre-growth spurt but her mother had refused to replace until she was sure Jeanne wouldn’t outgrow the new one in a matter of months. If they’re all going to be sharing living quarters, they’d have accept things that had been private at home no longer being so.

Jeanne just wishes she could practice navigating these new circumstances with a classmate who didn’t leave her feeling so wrong-footed.

It’s not just that Mikasa is beautiful, the type who in Trost would have looked down at nose at Jeanne for being too fat and then too lanky and never, despite her mother’s efforts, elegant. Mikasa is strong, she’d done amazingly in their first few exercises; she hasn’t volunteered answers during any of the lectures but from the way she looks when she’s listening, Jeanne’s got a gut feeling that she’s smart too. She’s competition, possibly the best of the cadets Jeanne has met, but perhaps Jeanne could learn from her, after all, ten candidates will receive the chance to join the military police, there’s no harm in establishing some good relations while she’s here. Three years is just less than a quarter of her life so far, a long time to go it completely alone, and this isn’t like back in Trost when she got to go home at the end of the day, the people here will be her constant company until graduation.

Intimidating though she is, Mikasa isn’t some stuck-up merchant’s daughter, she’s here in the training corps, which means she must have some common ground with Jeanne and Jeanne finds herself wanting to make a good impression.

If only she could think of some way to do so.

She could tell Mikasa how cute her new haircut is, everybody likes a compliment, but Jeanne’s sure she already knows. Probably half their classmates have already said so. Mikasa ought to look at her and see that they’re alike in being candidates for real success, which won’t happened if Jean behaves just like everybody else.

Talking about how well she did in the balance exercises is out too, after so little training acting as if her grasp on the exercises is from understanding not pure instinct will just mark Jeanne out as a pretender, and although Mikasa seems friendly with Eren Jeanne has to assume that’s in spite of his delusions of grandeur not because of them.

Oh crap, she has to say something now, she’s been watching for too long and now Mikasa is looking back.

“How’s the water?”

Mikasa blinks, and Jeanne can feel her face heat. Why did she say that? What a stupid thing to say! They were in a barracks, not a bathhouse. No doubt the water was at best lukewarm and the flow little better than gravity offered.

Still, shrugging and turning away is more dismissive than she deserved. The question was foolish, but not that much. Hadn’t Mikasa ever heard of casual conversation?

Not being a morning person would be an easy explanation, but if that were the case, why would she even be up? No, something about this silence feels personal.

Perhaps she’s mad that Jeanne nearly fought her friend at dinner, but surely she could see that he was hardly blameless in that.

They’d clearly had some history, but that didn’t oblige her to take Eren’s side. It’s really not fair, if on top of being so terrible, he’s turned the most interesting girl here against Jeanne. If that’s the case, she has to know. “Don’t ignore me,” Jeanne says, approaching the sinks. “It’s a simple question. What’s your problem?”

For a moment, the words hang in the air between them. When Mikasa finally turns away from the mirror, her eyes are narrowed.

“You didn’t fight Eren fairly,” she accuses.

So it is about him. Great.

But… Jeanne hadn’t fought Eren at all, just argued. Unless Mikasa is referring to the training exercise. But they were supposed to do that! Surely Mikasa didn’t think her friend could get some free pass that left him untouched while the rest of them struggled through the demanding program. “The instructors didn’t mind. It’s not like we were brawling in the mess hall. Sparring was the point of the exercise.”

“Yes. Sparring. But you hurt him.”

“His nose had stopped bleeding by dinner.” Had Mikasa not seen how hard and fast Eren had come at her? Sure, his form wasn’t great, but he’d almost had the upper hand through sheer forcefulness, so of course Jeanne hadn’t held back. “Anyway, it’s good practise, right?”

Mikasa looks dubious.

“Practise? You weren’t using the moves the instructors were teaching.”

“Neither did he,” Jeanne reminds her. Eren had played dirty first, she’d only retaliated in kind. “So what? When I go to the military police, criminals won’t fight fair. And if he really wants to go up against the titans, he’d better get used to having a disadvantage.”

“What you did won’t teach him anything useful. A titan isn’t going to fake defeat or injury in order to trick somebody.”

Playing weak? Jeanne opens her mouth to deny the accusation, and then pauses. Dirty tactics are their own sort of impressive, effective if not honourable, and they’re a better thing to be accused of than having really been knocked down by Eren and so flustered that she’d momentarily forgotten how to fight back.

“Fighting is fighting. Human or titan, it’s still about strength and strategic understanding. Anyway, why take it so seriously when it’s not like he was going to come to actual harm?” Jeanne reminds her, instead. It’s a stupid, obvious thing, but Mikasa’s eyes widen.

Had she really thought Jeanne had been in with a chance of more definitive win?

“I mean, I wouldn’t have gone too far,” Jeanne assures her. “It was a training exercise, and there’s nothing to learn from beating on the weak.”

Mikasa’s brow is furrowing again and Jeanne weighs her last words. Hmm… Insulting her friend, maybe not the best move, even if it’s only the truth. “Anyway, even if the instructors weren’t planning on breaking up any fights that got nasty — which would be stupid, I know the training is supposed to be harsh but they want soldiers at the end of this, not a bunch of cadets too injured to be useful — you were there,” she’s not going to say Mikasa could have easily stopped her, though from what Jeanne saw the other girl definitely had more hand-to-hand skills the instructors had expected from them, but, “You and everybody else. It’s not like things were ever going to get out of control.”

Reassuring has never been something Jeanne is good at, she knows this because, try though she had, she’d never been able to stop her mother from fretting about if she’s making friends or had enough to eat or really sure about her plans for military service, but Mikasa is clearly of a sterner disposition, because she considers Jeanne’s words for a moment, and then, slowly, she nods and goes back to finger-combing her hair. Though unlike Jeanne’s it’s long enough that it would benefit from a real brush. It seems strange that she wouldn’t be using one, given how lovely her hair is, but a glance at her wash-bag shows only a plain bar of soap and flimsy looking toothbrush. Eren is a wall Maria refugee, and Mikasa obvious shares a history with him from long before training.

Jeanne remembers when the refugees had first arrived in Trost, staggering in with little more than the clothes on their backs, and the upheaval that had followed. Thousands of people left with nothing, and, though the government had stepped in to help, her mother had kept her close to home for weeks, afraid of the spate of theft and the tension of two populaces on the verge of riots. Then the wall Maria reclamation efforts had begun, and the refugee population cut down to a size that could be more reasonably integrated. There’d been a few Maria children at her school, though none in her class, and from what she’d recalled they’d been cared for by government-run orphanages. She’d never given them much consideration beyond that, but she wonders now, as she stares at Mikasa’s sparse belongings, if they reflect the care shown to all who’d lost their homes.

“Here,” Jeanne says, pulling her own comb from where it’s buried between her washcloth and a small bottle of hair-cream.

It hangs between them as Mikasa gives her a blank, befuddled look, like she doesn’t understand Jeanne’s offer.

“Well, I don’t need it,” Jeanne mutters. Is this weird? Perhaps Mikasa is more prideful than she seems, and will think this is some kind of insulting charity, rather than simply the right way to seal a truce because it’s stupid for them to be cold to each other just because of Mikasa’s ties to one infuriating boy. “You’ll take forever, doing it like that. You might as well borrow it. It would be stupid not to take care of hair as lovely as yours.”

Another moment, long enough that Jeanne is about to retract her offer and deny ever making it, and lifts the comb lightly from Jeanne’s grip.

“Thank you,” the words are quiet as she turns back to the mirror, setting to her hair with renewed efficiency but not so soft Jeanne doesn’t catch the addition of, “…yours is nice too.”

Jeanne smiles, flush with pride.

It had been comforting for Marco to call it grown-up, but he was a boy so what did he really know about hair? But Mikasa’s beautiful hair was clearly well cared for despite her lack of resources, and that meant her opinion on such matters counted. Unless it was pity, but Mikasa didn’t seem the type to offer false kindness just to lure Jeanne into looking foolish, not when she’d spoken so plainly about her disapproval of Jeanne’s dirty fighting.

Mikasa might have had an unfortunate taste in childhood friends, but she shows good judgement now. Perhaps in time, some of that good sense might spread even further around.


	4. Growing Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re jumping ahead in the training period now. There’s fun to be had in this era, so I might do some flashback chapters or something later, but I don’t want to linger too long when there’s so much story material to play with.  
> This part is still light on Eren and excessively high in foolishness. Seriously, I warned you.

Jeanne is settled in her favourite training camp hideaway.

It’s a quiet spot, surrounded by enough trees to create a sense of privacy and for the most part it’s all hers, far enough from the main training grounds that most of the other cadets don’t want to come all the way out here when there are easier alternatives that carried only slightly higher risk of interruption, and a good place to think.

Also, a good place to sulk.

Jeanne knows her current anger is ridiculous. It’s not that she wants to be one of those girls who will only trust other girls to check the straps and buckles of her ODM gear because the boys might ‘accidentally’ let their hands slip, she’d rather have them uninterested in her than thinking she’d put up with that shit without breaking their fingers, but it would still be flattering to think some of them at least wanted to. Why would they though, she muses, starting down the length of her body, when it’s not like she has much for them to grab at.

She tries not to dwell on her appearance, it won’t make her a better soldier so she’s resolved ever since her second day of training to disregard it, but now there’s a festival coming up to celebrate midsummer and the recruits have been told they’ll have a whole afternoon off to attend and it’s thrown them into chaos. She’s sure last time they were given leave like this most of them simply attended as one big group, breaking by area of interest as they toured the tents and displays, but this time around all anybody can talk about is who will be going together.

Now, their downtime has been filled with giggles and glances and indiscreet pointing and boys coming up to girls between exercises and blurting out requests to walk down together and Ava hasn’t stopped glaring at Jeanne ever since she offhandedly said that all of it was dumb and she didn’t see what the fuss was about so she was just going to be hanging around with Marco like always.

It’s awful.

Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are all going together a little knot of friends separate from the others just like always, and that’s fine because it’s not like she wanted them to join the main group so she could see what that idiot thought of the exhibits anyway just like she hadn’t wanted that at the last festival, it’s just clearly a sign of a world gone mad when he’s the one making sensible decisions while the rest of their class work themselves up in fits.

And the stupidest part of it is, it is dumb and she does wish things could be simpler like last year, but Jeanne can feel herself being drawn into the madness against her better judgement. Because Franz keeps giving Hannah his desert even though they go everywhere together already so of course she’s going to walk with him, Sarah said yes to Tomas and now they hold hands like idiots whenever the instructors aren’t present, and three different guys have offered to cover Mina’s stint of dish-washing duty even though she keeps politely turning them down, but nobody has even looked twice as Jeanne despite the boys outnumbering girls by three to one despite their higher drop-out rate. It’s not like she’d say yes if Daz or Samuel asked her to go with them, but it’s insulting to be so thoroughly ignored.

It shouldn’t matter. She joined the cadet corps because she’s got higher ambitions than snagging the attention of some mediocre boy and settling down in her home district to do the same work as her mother. Distractions won’t help her get into the military police, it’s bad enough she’d got Eren Jaeger driving her up the wall until she makes stupid angry mistakes. But the point of getting into the military police is to have a good life and having people who want to give her things and go on walks and hold her hand seems like it should be part of that. If none of her fellow isolated cadets are taking an interest in her then what chance will she have once she’s in the inner district surrounded by fancy Sina-raised women?

Her slide back into sulking is interrupted by the faint rustle of footsteps in the long grass and she looks over, squinting against the sunlight, and recognises the figure silhouetted against the setting sun immediately.

Marco is the only person who ever follows her up here because, as he settles on the ground beside her, he’s the only one who really cares where she goes when she gets sick of being around the other cadets and he’s the only one she’d share that knowledge with because he has the gift of joining her without being intrusive or disturbing, even when then 24/7 presence of other people has her ready to scream.

She’s never expected to end up with such a high opinion of Marco, not when the first impression he gave off was a naive idealist, but somehow they’d connected. They’ve been training together for two years now and he’s become her best friend: Marco’s honest character had made him more accepting than the others of the way Jeanne never politely hides her ambitions just because the others want to pretend they’re here for a higher calling, he doesn’t always agree with her but he never suggests she ought to pretend to feel differently than she does, and Marco is talented enough to be a good teammate in group exercises and never seems to mind that Jeanne scores equal to or better than him in almost every class. He even helps her study for the classes when he does rank ahead. And why not? While getting into the military police is a competition, there’s no reason she and Marco can’t both make the top ten. Jeanne’s not about to start accepting all her rivals, but three years would have been a long time to spend alone and Marco is a good friend to have.

He might shut down some of her pricklier jokes and he’s still bafflingly nice to the idiots in the class, but he’s her best friend, the one person who knows this is the spot she comes to when she wants to hide away from the constant frustration of being surrounded by her annoying classmates, the one person who’s presence she never feels the need to push away. He’s as close as she’s ever been to anybody: he helps her trim her hair every time now, getting a neater edge at the back than her first attempts at cutting blindly, and the first month she’d had to deal with cramps in training he’d immediately noticed that she was under-performing in the practicals and been so respectfully concerned that she’d decided it would be cruel not to explain that it wasn’t something she needed to go to the infirmary for — and then he’d playacted through every exercise that week, going easy on her on spars and helping her our without making it obvious to the others, until she’d got used to the feeling and had a chance to grudgingly share her predicament with the other girls in a dorm and hear the tricks the earlier bloomers had figured out for managing the most inconvenient element of womanhood while keeping up with exercises and wearing white pants (and damn, was there any more reason needed for her to be chasing the top ten and eventual command, when their uniform was monthly proof that there were too many men in high command?).

But what it all adds up to is the confidence that if there’s anyone she can ask for a second opinion about this, it’s Marco.

“Hey, am I attractive?”

Marco blanches. It’s as good as an answer and Jeanne sighs, ripping up a handful of grass in frustration. If even her best friend can’t give her a pity compliment then there’s no hope for her.

“W-why would you ask that?” Marco’s scandalised tone is almost enough to make her laugh - of course he wouldn’t want to be put in a position of having to say something potentially mean, even just to confirm the conclusion she’s already drawn.

Almost.

It’s not like she wants to be beautiful or anything, but she’s pretty sure most of their classmates barely even register that she’s a girl except for the fact that it means she’s assigned to the girls barracks. She’s not interested in anything that might seriously distract from her training but they do get some downtime and the way the girls she bunks with talk about flirting makes her wonder if she isn’t missing out at little. Being a successful solider is the most important thing, but if she’s really good enough she ought to be able to pull off both.

“I’m just wondering why the universe decided to give me such a lanky body and weird face,” she grumbles. The small price to pay for looking grown up being that short hair has made the length and angles of her face starker, and leaves her with nothing to hide behind even if she wanted to. It mostly didn’t bother her, but Eren had called her horse-face last week when they'd been arguing over a group exercise and since he never pays attention to anyone’s looks beyond noticing they weren’t titans for him to kill, she suspects he’s picked it up from other people saying it behind her back.

“What? Who said—? That’s not true!” Marco blurts out. “Your face is nice and you have a great body! F—for manoeuvring I mean!”

Jeanne rolls her eyes. That’s the first time anybody other than her mother has called any part of her _nice_. Though Marco isn’t wrong on the latter point, she’s great at manoeuvring. And she knows it’s at least partly because of her reach and because unlike most of the others in the regiment she’d never had to deal with any major set-backs because of growth spurts messing up her balance, getting the worst of that over with by shooting up half a foot just before joining the cadets and been one of the tallest girls recruited, and while the others are catching her up now she still has to get longer trousers every few months so she’s got no fears of being short; just of being awkwardly lanky. Though it’s entirely possible that the problem has escaped Marco’s attention, after all for boys the problem to worry about is probably the opposite.

She twists, crossing her legs as she does so, and settles facing him. “Nobody is ever going to say I have a good figure,” she explains, waving one hand at to encompass the long, decidedly un-curvaceous lines of her body. She’s tall, where most of the cute girls are dainty, and the giggling fuss the other girls make over who has filled out the most at the hips and chest is enough to make her wish she’d retained a little more of her baby fat.

And before Marco can offer up the excuse she’s been making to herself until recently, that it’s somehow the fault of her uniform with it’s boxy-seams and gender-neutral design, Jeanne adds, “I mean you can see it right now,” she’d half unbuttoned her shirt on the way up here, desperate to beat the heat, and all it reveals is puberty hasn’t seen fit to give her any significant growth spurts after getting so much taller. “An unladylike body type might be good for manoeuvring, but I’ve got nothing to look at, and—”

“Wh— You— Who’s looking-?!” Marco interrupts, pulling his knees up to his chest and shaking his head almost frantically, looking like he’s barely understanding what he’s seeing which Jeanne supposes is fair. Still, she finds that she wants him to understand her struggle, because if anybody could find a bright side it’s Marco.

She reaches out and grabs one of his hands, pulling it until she can hold it palm to palm with her own and compare sizes, demonstrating how, while her fingertips nearly reach his, his palms are so much wider than her own. “See. Bethan has half-sister from the interior who sends her magazines and soppy novels, and she when reads them out in the evenings they go on and on the men wanting to hold onto womanly curves,” the emphasis seems ridiculous to her, but Bethan’s tacky reading material is consistently clear that romance is all about trembling, heaving bosoms that spill from fancy dresses, and they wouldn’t print if it there wasn’t some truth to it which makes it all the more annoying Jeanne isn’t entirely sure how the women in the stories managed to move their bodies in such ways, except perhaps by having even stronger pectoral muscles than the rigorous training of the cadets created, “and since there’s nothing impressive to feel with my own hands, imagine how it’d feel with hands like yours. I suppose on that basis it’s no wonder nobody wants to ask me to the stupid festival.”

Marco swallows hard enough that she can see his throat bob. “Jeanne…” he says, sounding strange. “I… uh…”

The fact that Marco, who seems to always have something positive to say even in response to the most brutal training exercises, can’t think up a chipper remark to deny her inadequacy pretty much proves her point. Also, he’s looking her in the eyes. If Krista started walking around with her shirt half open, not single a guy in camp (nor most of the girls) would be looking at her face, hell, if Ymir was walking around with her shirt open a fair number of cadets would risk the consequences to sneak a look, but nobody thinks Jeanne is worth looking at.

“It’s fine,” she sighs, releasing his hand and flopping down into the grass. “Like you said, at least I don’t have to worry about weird balance for manoeuvres.”

And that is important, but, when everybody else is suddenly getting people interested in them and she’s not received so much as a hopefully look when the topic of the festival comes up, it feels like a pretty shitty consolation prize.

“But I mean, does anybody even think of me as somebody who could be attractive?” she adds, caving to temptation. She knows she’s no great beauty like Mikasa or Krista and she doesn’t have Mina’s cute demeanour to add charm to her looks, not even Hannah’s sociable-with-everyone manner. But there are so many boys here, surely there must be _someone_ saying nice things about her too?

“I… of course somebody does,” Marco stammers, eyes focused off into the trees. “But those sorts of private thoughts… well… they’re private. Don’t you have to appreciate them as an interesting mystery?”

“Oh, come on,” she says, punching his arm. “Don’t try and convince me the guys aren’t just as gossipy as the girls in private. What do they say?”

“I don’t… we…” Marco’s face had gone a startling shade of pink as they’d been talking and is getting pinker still as he asks, “Do the girls talk about that sort of stuff?”

It’s funny, sometimes she forgets Marco grew up in a tiny village with hardly anybody his own own age before joining up, then he gives it away by believing things that. “Of course the girls gossip,” she says. “I haven’t helped with the ranking of guys by cuteness,” no way is she getting involved in something as silly as that, not least because it would mean letting the others know what her private opinions were, but, “But, by the way, Mina’s arguments alone got you automatically in the top ten. You should consider doing something about that.”

“What?” for a moment Marco looks lost, then somehow flushes even redder beneath his freckles. “Really? Wow… but uh, Mina is nice and all, but I think she… I’m not… she’s not…” he presses his hands to his face for a moment before saying, “The point is, I’ve never heard the guys making an official list like that.”

“But they do have something,” Jeanne presses, she’s sure of it now.

“Sometimes people talk, I suppose, after lights out or in the showers,” the admission is halting and quickly mitigated by the addition of, “but it’s not a big thing.”

Jeanne rolls her eyes. Of course boys would be disorganised about it, but she still wants to know. “You can tell me. I won’t let anyone know I know.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Marco protests. “You can probably guess that everyone thinks Krista is cute and Mikasa is beautiful.”

“That’s boring,” Jeanne says. “Even the girls can see that.” Ymir is blatantly doing her level best to act on the first.

Marco shrugs. “I… that’s what there is. If you want to know about yourself, the truth is, I’ve never heard anybody talking about you that way.”

Oh.

Jeanne heart does not drop. It might falter for a minute, but then her strength kicks right back in. So _none_ of the boys think she’s interesting enough to even gossip about? Well it’s not like she has any interest in them either, and if she does pretend to be asleep and eavesdrops on her bunkmates talking about boys it’s only because the long nights can get so boring, not because she cares.

“They do say you’re one of the strongest cadets in the class though,” Marco adds, a weak consolation prize since Jeanne _knows_ she’s good as good soldier, so does everybody, that’s well documented in the rankings. “Lots of them want to beat you.”

She squints at Marco, trying to work out if he realises that knowing their fellow recruits want to see her knocked down the rankings isn’t really what she wants to hear right now, but he seems oblivious, as if any attention might satisfy her curiosity. He probably really does believe that knowing she’s seen as somebody to surpass is a sign of respect, while Jean is pretty sure that it’s mostly just that they aren’t happy getting beaten by a girl.

But Jeanne is beating them. She was ranked fourteenth at the end of their first year and three of those who placed above her have washed out through injuries or losing their nerve, and she’s fairly sure she’s surpassed others since she and Marco started studying together and bolstering each others weak areas. Those top ten spots will be theirs and that has to be the most important thing.

“C’mon,” she says, climbing to her feet and then grabbing Marco’s hand again, this time to help him up. Maybe what she’s got isn’t perfect, but together they can make do, and a year from now they’ll be MPs and all of their stupid classmates won’t matter anymore. “If we don’t start walking back soon, we’ll miss dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the limits of the pretty close PoV style I tend to write in is that sometimes there are details about the world I’ve thought of but can’t easily include in the text because the characters wouldn’t be aware of them and sometimes I gotta indulge myself in the notes, the main thing for this scene being:  
> c’mon, Jeanne, Marco’s lack of gossip means there is no gossip? More like, no way the guys of the 104th would talk crudely about any girls where Marco can hear - let alone about his best friend.


	5. Dreams on the Horizon

Jeanne is getting into the military police.

Nothing is official yet, but neither her name nor Marco's has slipped below eight in the rankings in recent months, so while there's always the possibility of last-minute changes (Ymir has slipped from fifth to fifteen after bombing successive written exams even though they’re so near the end of training there’s no new material she hadn’t already tested well on) it would take a truly freak incident to put her position in peril.

Against all the odds and her expectations, Eren has not just survived the training but also made the cut. Not that he seems to appreciate the achievement, three years of training and education still not making him smart enough to realise he could do better than wasting his life as a scout.

Sure, it's his right to make stupid decisions, but how can he be so blind to the trouble his lack of self preservation instinct causes others.

Just look at Mikasa. Even in a best-case scenario she's going to end up hurt when the idiot she cares so much for gets himself killed, but she's doing even worse by following him. It's infuriatingly stupid for somebody with her talents to throw herself away following him on a suicide mission, although at least unlike Eren who'll probably blindly charge right into the mouth of the first titan he sees, Mikasa might make a competent scout.

Armin is planning on letting himself be dragged along too, which is another pointless waste: with his brain he might do real good in the interior but he's middling best in the physical exams even when people help him out and he won't last five minutes outside the walls.

At least most of the other top ranked cadets aren't falling for Eren’s sway.

Connie and Sasha are both undecided as to their destination, but Jeanne suspects they'll go to the garrison - they both like life too much for the scouts but they're too troublesome to thrive in the competitive environment of the military police.

Reiner and Bertholdt she doesn't know well, but Bertholdt spent a lot of time watching Annie and Annie is definitely going to the MPs, Jeanne wonders if she'll find something to make her happy there — it was one thing to take the competition of the cadets seriously but Annie is such a sour loner that Jeanne's suspects she hasn't let herself enjoy one moment of the past three years.

Before any of that matters though, she has to get through dish duty with Eren because apparently the alphabetical assignment system overrules the fact that they usually end up fighting and leaving the whole scullery a sudsy mess. Perhaps Shadis thinks making them clean the place up as punishment is more efficient than just adding mopping the sink area to the chore rotation.

Although it really isn’t fair that she’d made to take half the responsibility, because they’ve barely exchanged a word beyond divvying up the sinks but Eren is spilling water all over the floor every time he dunks a plate into the basin like it’s personally offended him by being dirty.

“You’re making a mess,” she points out. “And I’m not helping when Shadis makes you clean it up.”

The next dish enters the water with a particularly dramatic splash as he turns to glare at her. “Yeah, well, I’m not doing more dishes when he comes along and chews you out for going too slow.”

Her remaining stack is much taller than his, but if she’s taking longer it’s only because she’s scrubbing them properly. Anyway, probably Eren rigged the piles so she has all the dirtier ones.

“You’re just going to have to rewash them,” she points out to him. “Look, there’s still half a carrot stuck to that one.”

“It’s not my fault people are so wasteful with their food,” Eren whines. “And when I’m in the Scouts I’ll be able to do some good for humanity, instead of wasting time on pointless tasks.”

Jeanne rolls her eyes. Everyone knows the scouts have no funding or status, there’s no way they have the resources to hire people to take care of the cleaning for them. “If you want that kind of luxury, you’d be better off switching your plans to the military police. Or is this you admitting you’re going to blow the final exams?”

“It’s not about luxury,” Eren snaps, pounding his hand against the water and sending droplets flying everywhere. “What a stupid thing to waste your skills on chasing! I can’t believe you’re able to fight, but instead you want to spend all your time trapped in the interior just so you can pretend it’s a safe home.”

“It’s not trapped,” Jeanne corrects. Trapped would have been staying in Trost, knowing there was just a single wall keeping the titans at bay, and working hard every day for no reward but the next day of work. “And it is safe there. You’re the stupid one, for not wanting to forget about killing titans and actually have a life.”

“Forget?” He’d splashed suds up into his hair and they drip down his face now, but do nothing to lighten his harshness as he says, “I can’t forget that humanity is basically imprisoned here or that we have a right to the world out there which the titans took from us.”

Jeanne grimaces. Of course that was the wrong angle, he can’t forget his home, that was too much to suggest, but it wasn’t like there was any hope of recovering Maria, Eren did well enough in class that he had to understand that from a tactical perspective it was absurd, so why keep looking back?

“Well, why not let the memory be your motivation to have a better life?” she says. If the fall of his home was so horrible, surely the smart thing to do was get as far from the danger of it ever happening again as possible. “You getting eaten by a titan isn’t going to make wall Maria whole again.”

“Reclaiming wall Maria is just the first step,” Eren explains, with a seriousness that would almost sound like he’s put thought into this if the statement itself weren’t so absurd. “If I ever have a home I want it to be out in the world, somewhere free from all walls, that’s a life that’s really living.”

A life that’s really living… it’s all she wants too, but there’s no way to find it out there. The only thing the world is full of is titans and death, everybody knows that. Everybody except Eren, who is too pig-headed to listen to a single warning.

“Your funeral,” she mutters, turning back to the dishes because watching him delude himself just gives her stomachache. “Maybe I’ll have a drink in your memory while I’m between patrols at the palace, since that’s the closest to the good life you’ll ever get.”

There’s another splash, followed by the sound of shattering crockery as the plate in Eren’s hand smacks against the basin.

Urgh. Shadis is going to stick them with so many additional chores for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tfw when the chapter that was supposed to be 'splash fight while doing dishes' scene gets sidetracked by their contrasting views of what a meaningful life is…
> 
> Have you seen [this ridiculously amazing chapter 1 art](https://bonkochammy.tumblr.com/post/611693704994062336/a-little-sumn-for-distractionpie-because-her-new)? I thought I'd already linked, but i'm apparently a disaster 🤦
> 
> Next up - Trost.


	6. Homecoming I - Orders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeanne goes home. It's not a vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my original plan was to get all of Trost written and then do a few regular updates but I forgot just how long Trost arc goes on for and it has so much Jean content to play with, and I hadn't updated in ages, so I decided to just go ahead and post this. My original plan for this project was always 'snippets from an au as and when inspiration strikes' so here's me actually trying to stick to that.

She’s one of the last to realise that something has happened.

What? ‘Eren’ and ‘titan’ are far too common a combination of words to be attention grabbing.

But although she’s mostly absorbed in planning for graduation (namely, how to ensure she and Marco are assigned to the same military police regiment now they’ve made the cut) she can’t miss the ripple of unease that follows the chatter, that Eren has somehow managed to see action already from up on the wall, that there’s been a problem at the gate, that it was the _Colossal Titan_.

It has to be an exaggeration or a misunderstanding.

But nobody is telling the cadets to shut up and stop being stupid.

And then they’re being ordered to find their squads and gear up.

Because the rumours are true and the outer wall has already fallen.

None of them have any practical experience or real assessment of how they’ll perform under pressure, training accidents aside, and they aren’t integrated enough with the military structure for them to fall under a particular officer's command. If she’d been planning this Jeanne would have assigned the cadets to organise and escort the evacuees, making them useful without draining leadership resources or risking stupid deaths.

Their actual orders are to serve as the main line of defence behind the already annihilated vanguard.

Titan fodder.

There’s no other way of looking at it. The commanders don’t know the value of the graduating class, so they’re disregarding the recruits in favour of prioritising the soldiers they already know, tossing out cadets on mass so to slow the titans down by giving them something to eat before they get to the elite squads.

She’s paid attention to her history and tactics lectures and, honestly in some ways more informative, has lingered around the edges to overhear Eren’s impassioned re-tellings of the fall of Shiganshina.

If the wall has been breached, they’re going to have a bloodbath.

In theory, high command ought to have learned from last time. As a protruding district, Trost has a well-manned garrison, but all the preparation in the world doesn’t change the fact there was only so much human soldiers, even in numbers and with weapons, could do against titans.

Mostly likely, they’ll shut Trost’s north gate and hope they can abandon the district without losing Wall Rose. The only question is, how long will they fight to get people out before they have to rule the remainder acceptable losses to prevent the titans coming any closer.

They have to fight, even if they can’t win. It’s the only way to buy time for people like her mother to get away. But it’s not like Jeanne is going to be able to make a real difference, the other regiments take all the lower ranks who couldn’t make it to them MPs because skill doesn’t matter, there’s nothing anyone can do against titans. So why couldn’t the Colossal have waited one more day to wreak all the same destruction after she was out of the way?

There was so much she’d planned on doing, but at the core of it her simple ambition has always been to do more that just live and die in Trost, and now she’s barely got to sample life before she meets her end in the same place she’d been born. A day longer and she’d have been safe in the interior, or at the very least got to see it and all that life had to offer before being recalled to the defence of Trost. She could have died with accurate knowledge of what she’s been missing out on in life.

She’s not going to cry, or hurl like Daz (what an embarrassment, she still doesn’t understand how he didn’t fail out of the training) but it takes curling her hands into tight fists to keep them from shaking as she crosses the courtyard and she’s so focused on not losing it and screaming about the unfairness of this all that she doesn’t even see Eren until they’re colliding.

“Move,” she hisses. She can’t deal with Eren right now, just another reminder of how she’s about to die without ever getting any of the things she wants.

“Hey!” Eren says, like he didn’t bump her. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?” she snaps, whirling back on him. Eren might be getting everything he’s wanted in having the chance to get eaten by a titan, but even he’s not such an idiot that he shouldn’t understand what a mess this is. “I know you’re eager to go out and die, but don’t expect me to happy about it.”

His eyes go wide, like he’s genuinely shocked to be called on his bullshit, and somehow even under all her fear she can still feel the flare of annoyance that she can’t put a colour to them. “Jeanne, calm down—”

“No! What the fuck, Eren?!” There were days in training when he could almost fool people into thinking he was halfway normal, but seeing how casual he is now with them all being used as Titan fodder to make time for the evacuation is a solid reminder of what a messed-up asshole he is. “Everybody here is about to die and you can’t have a little sympathy for them not sharing your suicidal dreams of—”

“Just shut up a second, would you!”

He grabs her by the collar, shoving her against the pillar with such ferocity that she barely avoids hitting her head.

“Jaeger—” He has her pinned, a reminder of his surprising strength despite the fact he’s still a quarter of a head shorter than her, but if he thinks she’ll hold back in these circumstances—

“No! This is what we’ve been trained for!”

Is he accusing her of forgetting her duty? Her hands curl into fists. How dare he? This is her _home_. Her _mother_ is out there somewhere. Of course Jeanne wants this battle to be won, but throwing herself away on a suicidal plan won’t solve anything. They might be able to buy time for the evacuation, but now there’s a hole in the wall Trost is going just the same way as Shiganshina did five years ago and Eren ought to know that this isn’t a battle that can be won.

But Eren is still talking. “We stared death in the face a more than once in the past three years, as part of the planned exercises and when things went wrong! But we lived. And we’re here. Some people failed out or ran away, or even died, but not us! Remember that? We’ve worked and struggled for three years, but we made it, and we’re going to make it through today.”

Everyone is watching them, listening to Eren’s rallying cry, but instead of turning to his more receptive audience, Eren presses a little harder, all of his heart pounding intensity is focused on her, as he says, “You can do this Jeanne, alright?” in a tone that sounds like half a plea and half a promise, something desperate under his determination, like maybe he doesn’t just believe they can win but needs this victory, “And the interior will be waiting for you tomorrow.”

Shit.

It’s nothing that’s within his power to assure her, but in the face of that concentrated passion it’s easy to understand why so many of the others have fallen under his spell.

She shoves him away, breaking eye contact before she slips too deep into the fantasy of hope he’s offering. But they _are_ trained for this and while it’s undoubtedly going to be a tragedy, it doesn’t have to be a massacre. But they’re only going to stand a chance if they’re on top form and there’s no dead weight putting them all in danger.

“Daz!” she calls out, wondering once again why Shadis didn’t just kick him out because the only use he’s ever been is as a bad example. “Get up!” Krista is trying to comfort him, but Jeanne still remembers the exercise where Daz nearly got Krista and Ymir both killed because Krista was nice to him instead of leaving him to the consequences of his own uselessness. Deploying the newly graduated cadets separately from Trost’s garrison means officers are thin on the ground, but somebody is going to have to kick their class into shape if any of them are going to make it through this, and if this is what it takes to get to the military police?

“Ow!”

“I said, _up_ , Daz!”

She’ll do it literally if she has to.


	7. Homecoming II - Followers

So this is what being top ten meant.

Being the one who people threw their last despairing glances at before realising that if there was any way out of this mess she’d already have taken it herself.

Sasha is flitting from roof to roof trying to rally people ready for a command that’s not coming, because their final order is to retreat in the face of a hopeless situation but there’s nowhere to retreat too without supplies.

Jeanne knows Trost. If anybody could think their way out of this it’s her, who knows these streets, knows every alley that’s too narrow for titans to pass through, knows the location of every garrison outpost that might have spare blades or enough gas for at least a few of them, but even if she got them all route to the depot, all they’d be doing is charging into the mouths of the titans there.

And even if they somehow avoided that death, survival isn’t enough. If they can’t win here, the titans will break through the gates of wall Rose, just like they had at Shiganshina with Maria, and there’s no way Sina will be able to take the subsequent refugees. Did command even think this fight could be won, or are the orders of the cadets just the first wave of sending people out to die in impossible battles in order to cut down on mouths to feed?

Another straggler lands on the roof, as though there’s anything up here but a wait for the inevitable, and— wait, no, it’s Mikasa.

If she’s here and not at her assigned post with the elite squad, something else has gone wrong. Jeanne can’t muster any alarm though, it’s hardly like the situation can get any worse than certain doom.

She tracks Mikasa across the rooftop for a few moments, but then it becomes clear she’s heading towards Armin, and Jeanne buries her face back in her hands.

That’s a conversation she has no curiosity to hear.

Connie had already told her about Armin seeing Armin earlier, separated from his squad and acting crazy, rushing off alone, Connie’s guess had been to find them but from the moment Armin had rejoined the group and she’d seen his face Jeanne had known just how gone squad thirty-four really were.

A part of her wants to ask for details, some twisted curiosity, some feeling that whatever suicide charge Eren undoubtedly made ought to at least be remembered and the event might go unrecorded if left with only Armin knowing it. Or perhaps it was just a selfish urge to know what had befallen a cadet ranked above her so she can avoid the same end, though Eren’s faults in battle have always been so different from her own that it’s likely useless.

It’s useless anyway. What does it matter if Eren’s death is remembered? He’ll be one of countless causalities here today and lingering on his death is just a morbid distraction from what’s waiting for the rest of them if they don’t find a way to resupply so they can make a proper retreat.

She’s always known this was going to happen, with death on all sides of course it would find someone who courted it, and right now dwelling on Eren, or the rest of squad 34, will only guarantee she joins them.

And then Mikasa is calling out Marco’s name and Jeanne has to listen, because she’s lost too much already today not to pay attention as Mikasa starts shouting out an assessment of the situation, the same situation Jeanne had already considered from every angle and sees no way out of and Marco is trying to tell Mikasa the same things, but Mikasa is just drawing her blades and calling them all cowards and weaklings and that’s enough to pull Jeanne to her feet because that isn’t just unfair, it’s wrong.

She’s always admired Mikasa, her talent was enough that Jeanne could mostly overlook the way even after they’d talked it out she glared whenever Jeanne kicked Eren’s ass in training as if it wasn’t important for him to learn what defeat felt like so he could pick up some self-preservation instinct. She is strong, but stronger than titans? Capable of winning where a whole battalion of cadets can’t?

No.

So either being first means Mikasa has a secret plan beyond just trusting her own power, because being stronger than the other cadets means nothing compared to a titan, or she’s just succumbed to the same vengeful rage against titans that had doomed Eren, believing her urge for justice placed her above human weakness even when she ought to know better.

Either way, she’s right about one thing:

The only way to win is to fight.

But though Mikasa might be willing to charge out there alone and live by her own strength and die trying, the one point Jeanne is sure of from all of her attempts at battle strategy is that the best odds any of them are going to get are if they fight together.

She’s not much more of a motivational speaker than Mikasa is, but really, it would take a magician to convince the surrounding cadets that this was anything other than a desperate decision forced by disastrous circumstances. But she unsheathes her blades and remembers Eren’s words from before the battle, and, “Were we trained to let our comrades fight alone?” she calls out. “The only use you’ll be by standing here is staying out of the way of those of us who are going to survive this, so come on.”

Her first step forward rings out over the silent rooftop, but as she breaks into her charge Connie is beside her and by the time she’s reached the roofs edge Sasha is rallying more people as if this is a game they can be teased into playing and a cry rises up behind Jeanne as individual voices get caught up in the sound of the cadets engaging.

Mikasa is rushing ahead in the point position, but she isn’t leading the cadets behind her, not so far ahead and making moves that anyone less than brilliant with the ODM gear won’t be able to imitate, leading them on a route that is direct but perilous.

But she’s keeping it clear, cutting down every titan in their path with an efficiency that has Jeanne thinking that maybe she wasn’t wrong to claim the strength to do it alone, and they’re drawing nearer to the armoury, to where most of the titans are but also to hope, and—

There were enough accidents in training that everybody knows what running out of gas looks like. There’s no mistaking Mikasa’s tumble from the sky as they exact fate they’re all trying to avoid with this attempt.

Goddammit.

So there was no secret plan, this really is a suicide charge.

Armin is already breaking off after her and Jeanne aims a line in the same direction but Connie calls out before she can fire.

“I’ll support Armin, you carry on with the others to HQ.”

But they need Mikasa to clear the way and while Connie is good and Armin is smart, the two of them alone with a grounded and probably injured Mikasa barely stand a chance on the ground. “I can come—”

“Don’t be stupid! There are titans everywhere and somebody had to get the others to HQ. They need your skills!”

Connie giving orders isn’t something she ever expected to hear. She’d certainly never guessed she’d be follow them, but he’s right. The cadets need somebody to follow, they can’t _all_ go after Mikasa, and she knows the city better than he does.

It’s going to be a lot harder to move directly without somebody making a path though the titans, and so Jeanne's pulls left, bringing the group around the market district which is too wide-open to provide good cover or anchors, trusting that the other cadets will follow her even though she’s taking them off the obvious route.

She hears the sound of hooks fixing and lines firing behind her.

Good, they remember this is her town.

No amount of training, even the exercises they’d done here, could prepare her for her hometown becoming a battleground but she’s going to use the best of her knowledge now.

With every rooftop her eyes seem to land on something she recognises: to the left, her old school; up ahead, the butcher’s shop that they went to because the one nearest their house was run by a woman her mother had fallen out with as a girl and never forgiven; out of the corner of her eye she sees a figure miss their mark and go crashing to the earth, landing right in the shortcut that shaved three minutes off her walk to market in the summer but got impassably muddy in winter.

Every narrow alley her mother ever warned her not to walk down is pathway leading them closer to safety, but keeping away from the main roads means there aren’t so many big titans, but it also means they’re using more gas and she can’t know if the compromise is right, it’s not like she’d taken a measure of what was left in everyone’s tanks before they’d started this run, so all she can do is keep a steady eye on the armoury — enticingly forbidden to her as a child (’they don’t want you in the way’ when she was young and then later it was a different sort of worried look) and now just as longed-for and still with such slim chances of making it there.

Is this what it had been like for Eren, Armin, and Mikasa?

But they’d been younger, entirely helpless. At least she has her ODM gear and her tactical training. Not that those things are doing much good for the cadets behind her who get unlucky.

And gear won’t do anybody good much longer. She can feel her tanks getting lighter, she’s on her final reserves of gas, which means those who are less efficient are in the danger zone and as she stops to assess the way forward and give the slower cadets time to catch up without losing the group, (or at least she hopes that’s the reason far fewer people are landing than she departed with), she sees that one person has already made the mistake of ending up out of gas and on the ground, the two things that they’re all trying to avoid.

He’s… she doesn’t remember his name, if she ever knew it. Something something beginning with C? Or at least that’s her best guess because she remembers his face as coming not long after Sasha and Marco in the class lineup, but they were grouped by ability for most exercises and there’s a lot of their training corps she never bothered to know well.

He’s surrounded and there’s nothing she can do except hope somebody else remembers his name to put it on the lists of the fallen.

But then his comrades are going after him

Tom.

That’s the name they cry out as they change forward, drowning out Jeanne’s order of “No! Wait—” because they don’t stand a chance, not against multiple titans, and she’s supposed to be leading them but they’re charging out ahead and her boots are stuck to the tiles, limbs locked, as they throw themselves forward and she ought to be going after them, pulling them back, bu they’re already in grabbing distance of that titans but—

She can’t even shut her eyes. Several of her original squad had dropped in combat but it had been nothing like this, she’d been too focused on fighting to take in the muscle clench of titan jaws, the way blood looked on those tombstone teeth.

The silence of the cadets behind her, waiting for her lead, rings as loud as the death screams of those who’d rushed ahead.

Why are they following her anyway? She’s from Trost, but not one of the citizens of Maria had any sort of victory of the titans in homes they’d known just as well. Because she was the one to pick up Mikasa’s rallying cry? But Mikasa was the one who’d initiated the change and how can they have any faith in Jeanne’s claims that they’re strong together when she’s standing here having failed to do anything for imperilled comrades.

If Jeanne were a leader, she would have done something. She would have saved the guy who ran out of gas, or at least kept his friends from wasting their lives in a pointless attempt at a rescue. But she isn’t.

Connie and Armin had gone to save Mikasa because it was the right thing to do, Jeanne’s first thought had been about how sticking with their number one fighter was the best way to stay alive.

The best way to stay alive…

Right now it’s moving.

The titans are preoccupied.

By eating her comrades, by the people who’d followed her lead and… no! They hadn’t followed her lead when they’d rushed ahead. Jeanne’s going to save as many of the cadets as she can, but she can’t be responsible for those who have suicidally charged into a direct confrontation with a Titan they don’t have the skills to take down. Hasn’t she always made clear her opinion on people acting with that sort of death wish?

“Let’s go!”

She glances over her shoulder, the others need to move with her, and she can see the surprise on their faces and so she says the other part, the awful part, of her plan, that is the part that will make it work. “We need to make a break for HQ while the Titans are distracted.”

And then Jeanne leaps. She can’t look to see if they’re following, if they still have any faith in her as a leader, if they’re willing to accept the cold-heartedness of this plan. This distraction won’t last for long.

They have a straight shot now, titans from the merchant district she’d been worried they’d run out of gas avoiding are clustering towards the fresh kills, they cut right over and they’re landing on more are more garrison building rooftops as they reach the right neighbourhood, they’re just a few swings away from HQ and…

The sheer scale of titans was hard to comprehend until you came in contact with one. She realises that anew as one massive hand engulfs her leg.

It’s pulling her in the same direction as she was already swinging and that’s the only thing that keeps the leg from breaking, but if she can’t break the grip…

Fuck. Even if she could break the hold, if she’s lost speed by the time the titan drops her, she’s dead. There’s not enough gas in her tanks for another take-off.

It’s a move she’s only practised theoretically and the equipment they’d trained with was nothing the real grasps of a titan.

Her slash is wild, cutting through a single finger. The width of her blade isn’t big enough for her to do anything against this massive fist with one hit.

But titans must feel some pain after all, because it loosens it’s grip, and she’s falling on enough a forward vector to shoot her lines onward, letting lose the last of the propulsion she has to angle herself upwards again and ready to make the final climb to HQ.


	8. Homecoming I - Burning Boy

They restock.

She still can’t quite believe it, but Connie and Armin got Mikasa back and then Armin came up with a plan to clear the supply hall and let them refill their tanks.

It had been a mess, none of their training had ever covered the possibility of a titan indoors, but they’d pulled it off and now they’re resupplied and ready to go, and hopefully the goddamn supply crew will do their job now it’s been made easy for them again.

Jeanne is a coward. She knows that now, today has been proof that Eren was right about her and Jeanne cares more about saving her own skin than humanity, but at least she’d _tried_. Cadets cowering under tables when they ought to have been keeping their comrades equipped, that’s all but desertion. Would they even have stayed at their posts, the easiest damn assignment they could have given, if Titans weren’t blocking their exits?

Now they have enough gas again, Jeanne just wants to get going with a full retreat, the bulk of the cadets have already gone, but much as Marco’s talk about her being a leader is just biased by the fact he’s her friend it feels cruel to prove him wrong so soon by setting off for safely when there are still people left behind, even if they are the ones least likely to need her help, gathered around Mikasa and Armin in gawking at the abnormal they’re so fascinated with.

It’s stupid.

Sure, it had punched out the titans that had nearly broken into HQ and currently the others of it’s kind are trying to devour it, which isn’t behaviour they’d seen from titans before, but this isn’t the time for a scientific study. They should be using the distraction it supplies to get back to command and ask for new orders, not talking about treating it as some sort of new ally.

The worst of it is, the group is made up of fellow top students plus Armin who had been top of the academic side of the rankings, so she can’t even blame it on there being too many dumb kids among them, to keeping kidding themselves that fighting fire with fire is a valid solution rather than just a certain way to end up with more fire. That abnormal might be raging against the other titans for now now, but they can’t trust that it won’t turn it’s attention on them any moment.

She understands just enough of why they’d fall for this, some extension of the rush of relief she’d felt when she saw that giant fist knock aside the titans she’d thought for sure were about to reach inside HQ, that seeing it get ripped to shreds feels more like another comrade being devoured than it does a titan getting a taste of it’s own medicine, but it’s not enough of an ally to justify Reiner’s insane suggestion to risk their lives defending it.

Her argument for that is just short as Armin cries out, “Oh no! It’s the one that ate Thomas,” eyes on an approaching titan, but it’s a relief to know that Armin hasn’t suddenly decided to consider all titans their friends.

Thomas and the others from squad 34? She doesn’t dare ask, shouldn’t get getting distracted at a time like this, and surely if it had killed Eren he’d take precedence in Armin’s recollection over Thomas. But the abnormal is charging it, something about this new titan getting a reaction out of it that being consumed hadn’t provoked and Jeanne can almost see what Armin and Mikasa mean about an intelligence burning in it’s eyes as it moves with an intensity she’s never seen in a titan before. Looking at it’s eyes there’s hard to argue that there isn’t emotion in those two glowing pits of… she squints for a moment at the colour, before recognising it as green. Of course they’re green, clear and bright, she doesn’t know why for a moment she’d imagined shades of blue and grey.

Most titans are shambling things, their idle unfocused movements a constant reminder they didn’t have to try, they just overpowered humans with their size advantage, but this abnormal is built like the newcomer and yet so clearly stronger, what it lacks in arms it makes up for in viciousness because it doesn’t need their help to toss the newcomer like a doll. But then it’s crumpling, like that charge was fuelled by a last burst of power and now it’s reserves are empty, it’s strange to see it showing something like pain and exhaustion when most titans were unstoppable forces of terror until they were dead, but it’s still just an abnormal, it would be delusional to project humanity onto it.

It’s down now and that ought to be the last of it, there’s no need to talk her comrades out of doing anything crazy and making themselves the next victims if the abnormal isn’t useful to them as a weapon. Or at least, it should be.

But everyone is still staring at it, like they can make it come back to life through the power of their collective commitment to this idiotic idea and she steps forward to try and remind them of what their priorities should be but then falls to a halt because they aren’t just looking down at a dead titan, there’s a human figure visible in the steam.

Has somebody been clinging to that thing? Surely nobody could be that crazy. If there was a human on it that would explain why the other titans appeared to be trying to devour it, clearly they were just after whoever it was, which made far more sense than mad theories about titans turning on titans

But still, how had they held on so long? How had they escaped being devoured? It wasn’t like there was much cover to be had at a titan’s nape, it was one of the world’s few favours to humanity that the spot was so exposed, but that also should have made it easy for the other titans to pick this survivor off.

The steam is clearing now, letting Jeanne get a better look at how the titan seems to be injured, the mystery person looking weirdly like they’ve somehow ended up in the wound, which makes no sense at all. She can’t see enough for a proper assessment of the situation, but it would be reckless to get up close just to take a look with so many titans still around. But what if it is a comrade, somebody who has beaten the odds to survive this but is injured too badly to get away now?

Jeanne’s boots are stuck to the tiles as Mikasa leaps from the roof, once again leaving Jeanne wondering if her charge is brave or reckless but then Mikasa is throwing her arms around the figure in the steam and so it has to be a comrade, for Mikasa to clutch at them like that. No, this reveals more than that: Mikasa’s not unfriendly but she’s only truly demonstrative with two of her fellow cadets, and Armin is still on the roof.

Eren.

Eren somehow still alive, somehow inside the abnormal titan. He must have been swallowed by it but held on inside it’s throat, taken advantage of it’s sudden weakness to cut himself out. It makes perfect sense, of course Eren would be the one to do something so ridiculous, he would be the asshole to scare everyone only to somehow scrape through on the sheer dumb luck that got him through training.

But if the titan Mikasa is pulling Eren out of is the one that had eaten him, why would Armin have talked about it’s abnormal behaviour making it an ally? He must have recognised it, it had too much of an unusual look for a titan to be easily mixed up with another.

So how on earth…

“What the hell, Eren?”

He’s always been a headache, but turning up inside a titan stranger than any on record is taking it to a whole new level on a day that has already been chaotic enough.

But she’s not going to get any answers hanging around up here.


End file.
